Trending

INTERVIEW: Tritonal at Ultra Music Festival

The guys of Tritonal have been blazing a hot trail in the Trance scene recently. Having toured all over the world, creating heavily supported music, and now with a new EP, having played A State of Trance 600 in Miami, they have their loyal Tritonians behind them.

We caught up with Chad and Dave after their ASoT 600 set at Ultra Music Festival, where they talked about their new release, their most embarrasing moment on stage, and their guilty pleasures! Check out what they had to say:

Since you’ve been here since last Friday, what has been your favorite part of Miami?

Chad: Oh, it’s got to be this. It has to be Ultra for me. I mean this is what it’s all about. And, you know, today we had the early slot on the A State of Trance 600 stage, and like, I was fully expecting online for it to be awesome and Twitter to be blow up, but I thought it would be slow at the stage - being that it’s the last day of a two-weekend festival, and people are going to be tired from going out last night. But literally, we stood up, and like, here came the Tritonians! And they were running to the stage. And that felt good, it really did.

How did your set go?

Dave: Oh awesome! Of course, you know Ultra just gives us a different kind of energy and a feeling. And a little bit of nervousness, of course like he was talking about, like ‘is anybody going to be there?’ You know, and they all came in and then, you know, they went for it, and in turn, like it cheered us up. Our fans always make us happy. Our Tritonians!

What is going on for you right now, are you guys touring?

Chad: Yeah, there’s that. We’re going to be pretty North America based. Last year was a lot of Europe, and Australia, and Asia, and Russia, and we went everywhere, all over the place. It was literally a year of dragging the suitcases around. And this year, you know, we really want to focus on, really, the U.S. to be quite frank. Like it’s so good here right now, this is our country; we’d be silly not to try to make our growth as exponential as we can. When we say touring in the U.S., for us that’s easy. Like, you go do a 27-hour journey to Melbourne, or like India, or Jakarta, like flying to L.A., or flying to Denver is like, cake! I don’t consider it touring really, because we play Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and we’re home by Sunday in the studio. And that’s how it is this week. So it’s going to be a lot of studio stuff coming up. We have our first EP which releases tomorrow of this year, Metamorphic 1. And, the single has done well, and remixes are going to come off the back of that.

Are there any plans for a Tritonal album?

Dave: I think, of course, someday there will be one. I mean, we’re artists. Just like the course of any artist, there’s going to be an album eventually. But, you know, we’re swimming around in ideas. Everything is in the air right now, and we’re waiting for it to all fall down into place, especially in the studio and stuff.

Chad: When we wrote “Piercing the Quiet” we knew what we were going to do on it. We had something to say and we were very laser-focused about what the album was going to be. And like, I don’t just want to be another artist [that says] “Oh, I finished the first album, time to write the second!” Like, I don’t want it to be a chore. I want it to be like, a piece of art that I know what I want to say, and here’s what we’re going to do, and this is what it means. Everything needs to be great, and I’m not ready to tackle that yet because we’re still exploring things sonically.

You guys have been doing pretty well, and touring everywhere. But do you have a specific show or festival that has been memorable for you?

Chad: There’s been so many. I mean, I think a really special one, and recently, was “Air Up There 100.” It was our 100th episode in Austin. You know, to start the radio show there, and to end it there on the 100th episode, in our home town, and sell that out. Amazing!

Dave: I mean we’ve played EDC, we’ve played all these festivals, I mean the World DJ Festival in Korea, which was awesome. This one takes the cake, only because of that fact that it’s so personal.

Chard: Yeah, it wasn’t about the like, the whatever, 80,000 people. It was about hometown, in a market that isn’t about trance or progressive house. They don’t do those sort of shows, and to sell it out. And to have guys that we respect and look up to so much, like Kyau & Albert, and Super 8 & Tab on the event, was just personal to us. Like, I can remember when Dave and I started listening to the Kyau & Albert tracks. And to fast forward a few years later, to have these guys sort of opening up for us on our 100th episode – sick!

Are those guys particularly inspirational to you?

Dave: Oh man, yeah. We looked up to Kyau & Albert for the longest time – we still do! All the Euphonic guys. They’re so intelligent when it comes to their sound design and the arrangement and how they do the vocals.

Chad: And we look up to a lot of [guys], you know Above & Beyond, and Armin, and we’re in a good community, and we’ve been inspired by a lot of good artists. And you know, that speaks to what we’ve been able to achieve, because we’ve looked to what we think are class acts, and kind of said ‘Look this is how these guys handle themselves in the studio, this is how they handle themselves on the road, and this is sort of like, the way we need to handle ourselves with our career.’

What is on your playlists or your iPods?

Chad: I don’t have any dance shows on my iPod. Like, I get so many promos, and if I’m trying to catch up, I will. Like, I did listen to Hardwell’s set, and I keep my ear to the ground on who’s doing what and who’s playing what, but like, when it’s airplane time for me, it’s like Pretty Lights, and M83, and stuff like that. Like zone out and chill out.

Dave: It’s the same for me as well, especially, when you’re flying to a club and playing at a club, you’re going to hear it the whole night, you know. And for me, it’s like chill as well, you know cinematic orchestra, all of that.

Since you guys fly around a lot, what’s your favorite thing to do at the airport?

Chad: Watch “Breaking Bad.”

Dave: He’s so into that right now!

Chad: No, we like to work on tracks, and I don’t know, like stay busy because it can become a lot of down time.

Dave: it can drive you crazy, but you got to take all the crazy with the beats!

Do you do a lot of producing on the road?

Dave: Yeah, we get ideas down on our laptop, because you obviously can’t do everything on it. I like to see everything that’s going on. I want to take it to some monitors. Of course you can take monitors with you, and some speakers, and whatnot. But I mean, for us, we like to be portable. We’ll get all our melodies and ideas, and bring it back to the studio when we get home, and finalize them.

What has been the best Tritonian fan moment for you guys?

Chad: Wow! Man, that’s a good question, there’s been a lot!

Dave: You know there’s one in particular, one of them is sitting here in the back of the room.

Chad: Yeah, we know who our fans are. Like Lori’s in the back, and like she knew who we were back in the MySpace days! Like that’s an era, like when MySpace was legitimate! That’s funny. I don’t know, like we’ve had people show up in like Tritonal costumes, dresses, like we had a cheerleader, the Tritonal cheerleader at EDC Las Vegas. That was an interesting look. There’s been some cool moments. But I mean, really, it’s not about that to us. It’s just about like, their dedication and love for us online. We sort of cultivate that. Like I don’t know, if you keep up with our social media, but we do take a lot of time and reply to questions, hashing out little arguments when they come up, replying to their requests for, you know, ‘how do I do this in the studio,’ ‘will you take a listen to this song.’ And like, just being real, like being down to Earth. You know, sometimes they’re like ‘eh, I don’t like that track, you’re sellouts.’ And we have those conversations, and I think it’s important to. I do not feel like I’m some big rock star, superstar dude who can’t take two seconds and write a little reply. I can, and I do.

What has been the biggest embarrassing moment for you guys on stage?

Dave: Well of course we’ve had records stop on us all the time. That’s happened, that’s embarrassing, we’ll go to crazy and flick a USB.

Chad: Oh, I got one, I got a good one! Vancouver! This one takes the cake. Vancouver, Halloween show, sold out. They’ve got some cheesy, like, the theme was like Batman. They had like a city in front of us on stage - Gotham City. And we have this like Ferry Corsten/ Dada Life “Kick Out the Epic” mash-up. And it’s about to “kick out the epic” whatever, and I go to like, jump on stage, and the whole thing is just completely soaked with perspiration from the water. And I like, surf across it, kick the CD-J, the music stops right as it’s about to drop. I go tumbling over the stage, six feet down, hit the floor. The whole club is just like .. pin drops. I got up, I got on the mic, I was like “YUP!” and hit play. Seriously we were waiting for the Twitter picture. We had a hashtag #chadsstagebail2012.

Dave: And what we were laughing about constantly was because part of the stage was on the end of the table, and it was bent over for the rest of the night!

Chad: But we were thinking we should probably be careful on the Ultra stage. That’s a long way down there!